US Accounts for Almost Half of all Major Cloud and Internet Data Centers

RENO, NV, March 21, 2016

New Q4 data from Synergy Research Group shows that the US now accounts for 46% of major cloud and internet data center sites. The next most prominent locations are China and Japan, with 7% and 6% respectively. The three leading countries are then followed by Australia, Singapore, Germany, UK and Brazil, each of which accounts for 3-5% of the total. The research is based on an analysis of the data center footprint of 17 of the world’s major cloud and internet service firms, including the largest operators in IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, search, social networking and e-commerce. In aggregate the companies now have over 230 major data center sites. On average each of the 17 firms had 14 data center sites. The companies with the broadest data center footprint are the leading hyperscale cloud providers – AWS, IBM and Microsoft. Each has 40 or more data center locations with at least two in each of the four regions – North America, APAC, EMEA and Latin America. Google, Oracle and Rackspace also have a notably broad data center presence. The remaining firms tend to have their data centers focused primarily in either the US (Apple, Twitter, Salesforce, Facebook, eBay, Yahoo) or China (Tencent, Baidu). Previously Alibaba also was focused mainly in China but it has now opened data centers in the US, Hong Kong and Singapore.

“Given that explosive growth in cloud usage is a global phenomenon, it is remarkable that the US still accounts for almost half of the world’s major data centers, but that is a reflection of the US dominance of cloud and internet technologies,” said John Dinsdale, a Chief Analyst and Research Director at Synergy Research Group. “The other leading countries are there due to either their scale or the unique characteristics of their local markets. Perhaps the biggest surprise is that the UK does not feature more prominently, but that situation will change this year with AWS, Microsoft and Google all opening major data centers in the country.”